This picture was taken by Katie recently as she made fun of my dining habits. I'm used to that, get it from Adam and Tim every so often, but at least they don't take pictures of me... Just wanted you to have an idea of who is saying all of the following. That way, in the event I say something disagreeable, you can look at the picture and think, 'Ya well... look at the poor guy...'
I have been told, quite often by Aussies, that I make a good ambassador for my country. 'Jeff, you are the only American I have ever liked.' 'Hella nice guy. Wish there were more fellas like you around.' 'Prost!'
And I have said, more than once since first hearing phrases of this nature, that while abroad, it is my chief ambition to be the one American that everybody likes. Those of you back home, take it easy, don't get heated, but some people simply do not like Americans. I am doing what I can to alleviate that, albeit in small increments. I prefer to be liked anyway, I suppose we all do, but it is important to me to show what percentage of the rest of the globe I come in contact with that Americans are not all arrogant warmongers who despise anything south of the Rio Grande, north of the Great Lakes, or beyond an ocean. This is, unfortunately, the sort of reputation we've earned ourselves.
And I am guilty. It took a bit of adjusting when I first came to England a year and a half ago before I figured out what I could say and how I could act. I remember getting called out at a dinner party for improper fork usage. (I do NOT apologise for that, by the way. Yes, in America we might've oversimplified some traditions--in my house, we had only one fork, one spoon, and one knife apiece, and we DID eat with out hands-- but why overcomplicate something so elemental as transporting food to one's mouth?) I think one of the reasons I got on so well with some of the Australians I met was that they had low expectations of me. What Yanks they had met left them far underimpressed, and, like us, they prefer to cut out unnecessary falderal. I was able to be myself.
And I suppose the Australian angle is the best to address the next point from-- that it truly is a shame that what most Americans know of the rest of the world we have learned from Hollywood, and an industry that survives by sensationalism. I was doing my best impersonation of an Australian accent once, and a girl from Melbourne said, 'Oi! (Or the Aussie equivalent of that Britishism) That's pretty good! Where'd ya pick that up?' I responded that I spent a lot of time in my younger days watching the Crocodile Dundee films, and she was nearly offended. 'That is NOT what Australia is like. There might be a few blokes still around like that, but Australia is not just some big wilderness full of simpletons.'
Fair enough. The movies left me with only a desire to see the continent myself, and most of the folks I've met from there have only fueled the sentiment, but having met some of the locals, and having now seen the third installment, released only about 5 years ago, I can understand why they might be offended. In Crocodile Dundee 3, Mick and his best mate are living in LA, and are amazed, in awe, and aghast at this revolutionary restaurant known as Wendy's. (Those not familiar, this is a very cheap fast food restaurant, with a drive-thru window open till 2 a.m.) Apparently, the blokes from down under have never seen such as this.
Note to Hollywood: Australia does not exist only in the extinct time frame that was the setting of 'The Man from Snowy River' and 'Five Mile Creek.' Ever seen a picture of the Sydney Opera House? Big, crazy, conch shell looking critter? What's LA got? A bridge? Oh, really? Think the rest of the world's never seen one of those?
Pardon me... the soap box expanded without my intentions...
The movie 'Hostel' came out in the States while I was travelling around Europe about a year or so ago, and my friends back home were scared to death that I was going to be hacked to death in my sleep by some non-English speaking native. Set in Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia, the premise of the movie seemed to be that beautiful Eastern European women seduced young American males, and then relieved them of their vital organs, or some other such unpleasantry, for both their own pleasure and monetary gain. One guy said, 'Man, I will NEVER sleep in a hostel!'
Alternately, you could just avoid prostitutes.
I spent a few days in Bratislava this past fall. It was one of the friendliest cities I've seen. The food and lodgings were affordable, the local Slavic women were in fact, on the whole, gorgeous, and most folks my age were students at the University, studying English, and were, as a rule, very eager to practice their vocabulary with me in the street, and didn't try to lure me into dodgy circumstances.
My Colombian friends get nearly hostile when it comes to Hollywood. Contrary to American, and other nations', film theory, more goes on in Colombia than just the harvest of illegal substances. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's movie 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' allegedly started out in Bogota, but anyone familiar with the locale (I am not, but have been informed), would know that Bogota is in the mountains, has damp and grey weather, and does not, as a rule, feature explosives randomly sounding off. I'm afraid to ask how 'Romancing the Stone' (Which featured an exactly opposite background) was accepted.
It just seems that we are very good at delineating the world: us and them. I remember when studying literature that a basic necessity for any story, perhaps more than the protagonist, the hero, is the antagonist, the force of evil, the metaphorical wall, the plot's chief agent, an 'other' to point fingers at. While I do think this is necessary for a storyline, I would suggest that we be less drastic in our choice of 'others.'
I was thinking about all of this this morning while washing dishes for the housefull of Mexican amigos y amigas that I've come back down to Nottingham to visit. All of their dishes are from the local IKEA-- a retail chain, if you haven't heard of it, that originated in Scandinavia. Denmark, perhaps. Every product they sell comes, seemingly, from crafters in all different corners of the globe, and not merely high output factories in southeast Asia. The drinking glasses are from Italy, the plateware from Turkey. They sell furniture made of real wood, designed, cut, and packaged in and around Northern Europe. Every country is represented, and the products are of a very high quality. And, like Target back home, in a University setting such as this, nearly everyone I know shops at IKEA for something. You can go into almost anyone's house and find something that you're familiar with. Triangulation: immediately, you've got a common point to converse over.
Rather than simply trying to turn the highest profit(though, perhaps they are, I don't know. I am just impressed with what I've seen thus far), IKEA is inadvertently creating links between people. Instead of pointing fingers across theaters and in front of cameras criticizing the differences between cultures, and perhaps shortchanging the person at the end of the barrel, they're doling out fashionable items that everyone can enjoy, at affordable prices.
No, I don't think world peace begins in a department store, and I realise this was both oversimplified and underthought, but thanks for reading anyways.
Today's moral:
...is convoluded, and I didn't plan well enough ahead to know how to stop this flow of thought...
And also, if I sound vain, and proud of myself, as if I actually think I am America's best representative, I apologise. I'm not, I don't, and I spend far too much time with my foot in my mouth, or eating crow, or just generally not thinking of what I might be saying. You may have already come to terms with this fact. I'm trying my best, I promise. Learning through, and despite of, my own semi-latent idiocy, that's me.
Have a great weekend, though. I hope you're well, wherever you got out of bed, or rolled off the couch, this morning. Nottingham has, up until dawn today, been gorgeous. This is my friend Alex, as we were walking around the lake at Wollaton park yesterday.
